Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...
Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly. - Albert Einstein
You will no doubt be able to provide a specific citation for the Einstein quote — the date he said or wrote it and to whom.
Why is it that whenever people who are anti-science want to make their anti-science points, they drag out Einstein making quotes on social issues? Einstein was no better qualified to make a statement on social science or cultural issues than Forrest Gump.
If pictures of Catholic Bishops giving the Nazi Solute doesn’t convince you that some members of the Church were nazis, then nothing will.
... I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly. - Albert Einstein
Yes, even in wartime reporters make up quotes by famous folks ...
... Having a long-standing interest in verifying quotations, I turned to The Expanded Quotable Einstein, but it does not include this statement. So I wrote to its editor, Alice Calaprice. She was unsure about the statement but kindly referred me to Barbara Wolff at the Einstein Archives in Jerusalem. Ms. Wolff was able to answer my question: It turns out that the Einstein Archives contain an unpublished letter mentioning this topic specifically. Writing to Count Montgelas on March 28, 1947, Einstein explained that early in the Hitler years he had casually mentioned to some journalist that hardly any German intellectuals except a few churchmen were supporting individual rights and intellectual freedom. He added that this statement had subsequently been drastically exaggerated beyond anything that he could recognize as his own.--Did Einstein Praise the Church?
In this case, Einstein had been in the US since December 1932 (two months before Hitler became Chancellor), at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He would been just as aware of the goings on inside Germany as any other immigrant.
Time magazine puffed up his comment into a profound quote and published it 8 years after the fact.